Day 7: Monday, June 3rd
Hello everyone! June 3rd was a hot, hot day! Are you noticing a pattern yet? As always, there were lots of happy moments and laughs with the team. These people are incredible to “work” (they even make moving concrete fun) with and their drive to accomplish what we set out to do inspires me! Our usual routine on a weekday like this is to wake up, unstick ourselves from our cots, bucket shower, and head down to a delicious breakfast!
Our cook pretends like he really only likes Victor and Michael, but how could he resist the rest of us? Our cultural advisor, Janet, makes sure we eat our boiled eggs, pourri, and whatever delicious curry is in the pot that day. Then we head out to the site and get to work! We use plastic bowls to create an “assembly line” and pass concrete person by person to the workers.
After a little bit, we usually join the kids for some “skipping” (jump rope) and frisbee! Once midday rolls around, it’s usually too hot to work. This is when we load up into the van and enjoy some “sweet, sweet bliss” (our team’s phrase for A/C) and head back to our house. Midday naps are usually in order, but this week we started playing card games with our host family’s kids! That afternoon when we returned to the site something special happened... we taught our kids in Sirupinayur the dance of a generation. Enter the Macarena. Zia was pretty sure that the lyrics were “one maca, two Maca, three maca Rena”, but after a brief encounter with WiFi, we solved that problem. Turns out none of us really knew the lyrics, but we all had the dance down. The kids loved it, but mostly because they loved laughing at us. The next day we worked through our regular routine, but decided to be splashy and go out to eat. Everyone loved their food! We had lots of laughs and enjoyed delicious mocktails.
Here’s to another week of hard work and good times!
Sarah Jarrell
PUC India 2019
*Note: There will be no Day 8 post*